The City of Yelm’s Parks and Recreation Department hosted its third sticker shop of the year on Monday, March 20, to celebrate the first day of spring as residents went out to “hunt” for gnomes placed around the city.
Previous sticker stop events included a Groundhog hunt and landmark bingo.
Participants were able to find the gnomes at Cochrane Park, Longmire Park and Yelm City Park.
Line Roy, the city’s communications and recreations coordinator, said the goal of the sticker stop is to encourage the area’s youth to be active in Yelm’s parks.
Each park included three gnomes and participants were asked to take photos of or with the mythological creatures to earn their sticker.
Each of the gnomes featured a fact about springtime. Roy said she plans to continually add small facts related to the theme of the sticker shop.
As Roy thought of ways to celebrate the first day of spring on March 20, she landed on including gnomes because of her mother’s obsession with them.
“Rudely, she did not come all the way here to hunt for gnomes today,” Roy joked. “She’s out in Montana.”
The next sticker stop will be held on Saturday, April 1, during the Easter egg hunt at Yelm City Park, which will begin at 11 a.m. Several different times are slotted for various age groups as participants will search for 30,000 eggs, which will be scattered throughout the park. Children 10 years and younger will have opportunities to collect Easter eggs.
Then on Friday, April 14, the parks and recreation department will host a family game night at the Yelm Community Center. The event will feature board games, yard-style games and interactive games which will be provided at the community center, but Roy said attendees can bring their own games, too.
There will also be a food truck on site.
Family game night will run from 7 to 10 p.m. All attendees under the age of 16 are required to have a guardian present.
To stay updated on events happening in Yelm, Roy encourages people to follow the City of Yelm Parks and Recreations page on Facebook.
“We post lots of updates and we’re gearing up for the busy summer months where there’s a different festival every week,” Roy said.
